Ana Gomes (S&D ). - Mr President, President Barroso did not tackle the issue of tax dumping within the EU, which enables some Member States to get richer at the expense of others by functioning as tax havens, stacking in other capitals business profits that are siphoned off from other Member States, in order to avoid paying tax at home and therefore escaping from contributing their fair share to national incomes.

They serve the same purposes for which Switzerland, Bermuda and the Cayman Islands are used as tax havens: to protect profits of tax evasion, other criminality and corruption. That may be legal, but it is also immoral and compromises the integrity of the Economic and Monetary Union. Can we complete the EMU and the Single Market and move towards fiscal and banking union? Can we restore confidence and credibility in the EU, if it rests upon the crime-abetting foundation of the prevailing Wild West of tax dumping?